Vista macros

How can I construct a Windows Vista macro to eliminate the manual steps in (for instance) auto starting excel and word and automatically opening several files ?? Also is there a procedure in assigning a function key to execute the newly constructed macro ?

Vista includes VBScript (VBScript aka Visual Basic Scripting Edition) by default but VBScript doesn't include built-in support for hotkeys (aka shortcut keys). Instead you would have to write the VBS script then create a shortcut to it then amend the properties of the shortcut to include a shortcut key.

An alternative is AutoHotkey (aka AHK), a scripting language which - as the name suggests - was originally written for exactly the purpose you need, i.e. hotkeys (but has since grown exponentially in functionality).

An AHK script to do what you want, using the F2 key as the hotkey would be something like:

The first line assigns the F2 key as the hotkey to run the rest of the script.
The second and third lines open the files you want, e.g. "C:\Users\Theodore\My Documents\My Example Document.docx".
The fourth line just serves to end the action of the hotkey.

In the second example, F2 would start Excel first, wait until it was running then start Word. If you pressed F3 then the example spreadsheet would open and if you pressed F4 then the example document would open.

AHK is just the scripting language. Once it's installed you could use Notepad to write your AHK scripts... but that's not easy whilst you're getting the hang of things. Instead, I suggest using SciTE4AutoHotkey as your AHK editor because it also includes a number of tools, including a rudimentary macro recorder.